


Warmth in the Snow

by Lioness25



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: Angst, Death, Grief/Mourning, Loss, M/M, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 05:06:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2535251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lioness25/pseuds/Lioness25
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike's reflections on the anniversary of Chester's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warmth in the Snow

 

 

 

_And the ground below grew colder…as they put you down inside…_

 

I never thought at the time, that those lyrics, from all those years, and albums ago, would turn into my painful reality.

I’ve always hated the cold, and the snow. He loved it though. So, every year, somewhat against my will, we’d go to the mountains for a few weeks, after Christmas.

I’d always spend most of my time huddled inside, wrapped in blankets, sulking. But, he’d always manage to coax me out, I could never say no to him…to that smile.

Though I’d never admit it out loud, and certainly not to him, there really was something magical about the snow, something unbelievably beautiful, almost ethereal; even if my fingers felt like they were going to drop off.

He’d just grin and tease me, his slender body somehow impervious to the cold.

It has been five years now, since that last trip, and the cold has never left me.

Not emotionally and not physically.

I’ve learned to appreciate its raw beauty, in a way that I never could before. It reminds me of him; it helps me feel closer, over the void that stands between us now, and forever.

My feet make deep wounds in the perfect white, as I make my visit to his resting place.

No longer do I hate this place. I cherish it. The solitude brings me peace, and the familiarity of the cabin he loved comforts me.

As I arrive it begins to snow. I close my eyes, turning my face up into the falling feather-like flakes. Like a whisper, or a ghostly kiss, they land on my cheeks, my lips, melting with a prickle of cold; cold like the silver ring through his lip, when it’d first meet mine…before my kisses had warmed it.

A burning wetness builds behind my eyelids, seeping out, carving hot trails over the sides of my cheeks, and down my neck.

Carefully, I kneel, brushing aside the accumulated snow.

I stare at the pitiless black stone for several moments. I reach out my fingers tracing the words cut into its face.

He wanted black. I’d never really understood that desire while he’d been alive, but now it was all too brutally appropriate.

My index finger lingers over his name, and then over the date he was taken from me. I close my eyes, my head hanging. A sob chokes its was out of me, then another, and another. My chest aches, and I bite my lip…

We were travelling home, from this very place. It was late, it was snowing, the roads were slippery, and I had been in a bit of a hurry. How sorely I regret that.

Chester was curled up, asleep, on the seat beside me. Blissful and oblivious, the way he ought to have stayed, as I got us home safely…instead… _instead_ …

The other car seemed to come out of nowhere.

I was making one of the slightly nerve-wracking turns, that are the norm of mountainous roads, when to my absolute horror, I found a flash of headlights barrelling towards us, in _our_ lane, passing the other car, on a blind turn.

I swerved. _The_ _wrong_ _way_.

It’s reflex I guess, to turn left, instead of right, when faced with oncoming danger when driving. Making that subconscious, instantaneous response, to shield yourself with the passenger side of the car.

The impact was monstrous. There is no way to describe the sound, to convey the feeling of helplessness; the scary effect of time, seeming to speed up and then slow to a frame by frame standstill...all at once.

But most of all…there is no way to describe…no way to forget…his screams.

Not the screams, so powerful, so inspiring that he’d release on stage…

No, these screams were those of terror, of pain…of one who is in the last moments of life, fighting, howling as death’s claws reach out to claim them.

I can see the blood. I can smell the blood.

I can see the way he looked at me, his eyes filled with tears, as his cries faded; hear those final, whispered words, before he slipped into unconsciousness: ‘ _’don’t_ _leave_ _me_ … _’’_

I didn’t leave him. I could never leave him.

But he left me.

In my mind, as I have done for years and years, I can see his pale, fragile, broken body lying in that sterile hospital bed, in that grim room, in the way that all medical areas, and accoutrements are.

It was so unfair. I walked, literally, walked away from the accident with the merest of bruises, and some scrapes…

Yes, well, I’d saved myself…I’d failed him…hadn’t I?

He slipped away, to that place beyond my reach, just before dawn. With his slender, cold hand clasped in mine, he opened his eyes one last time; his lips pulled themselves into a weak smile, and his last breath, his last utterance, my unworthy name.

If only I’d not been driving so fast…

If only I’d not swerved…

If only I’d…

If…

Only…

The snow has slowed. I tilt my head back again, as one of the slow, puffy flakes lands on my lips. I close my eyes, feeling it melt, and run in a single drop to the corner of my mouth.

An icy kiss, to warm my frozen heart…

 

 


End file.
